Time Runs Out
by Rieru
Summary: One-Shot. First in a series of one-shot fics about the Last Great Time War. Eighth Doctor.


**Disclaimer:** The characters and planets of Doctor Who are copyright of the BBC and BBC Wales. Any reference to real historical figures is purely fictional in this context. Any reference to real people is purely coincidental and is not intended to cause offense.

**A/N:** This is my first piece of fiction for a while, and I'm quite pleased with it :) Thanks for reading!

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><p><strong><span>Time Runs Out<span>  
><strong>

A tall figure stood against the growing darkness. A storm was looming, and death was in its wake, and the man knew this. He stood there, on the high slopes of the mountain of Solitude and looked towards The Capitol, once so full of life and grandeur, now lay cracked and ruined at the base of the mountain of Solace, Dalek saucers lying scattered and burning around the dome of the city. Impossibly old, with a mind saturated beyond endurance with a millennia's worth of knowledge, he looked no older than forty, though his hair, once long and auburn, was now singed and blackened with the soot of war, and his once bright eyes, usually filled with the spark of adventure, were now dull and weary. They gazed out over the planet with resignation and revulsion, but he knew this _had _to happen. There was no retreat from this, for even now the Inner Council were debating to erase existence, and rise as ethereal, non-corporeal beings, "higher" than life. What had happened to _his _people, the people he had loved? Many of them were beyond dead, their life cycle finished.

The things this man had done were beyond legend to some races already, and the things he had seen could not be unwritten. The fall of Arcadia seemed to shimmer in his mind's eye, with the Elite Guard falling all around him, with the Dalek forces advancing on him. He had been alone at the end of that fight, alone against the oncoming storm, and he had run. He ran so far that day, only to be drawn back to war. He had been called to the Gates of Elysium, with the war not even a year old, and he had fought on the front lines. With so many of his comrades falling, or fleeing from battle, he nearly cracked again, but memories of Arcadia had forced him on, and the victory was his, though it was hollow. He was not a fighter, he longed for nothing more than adventure and knowledge, but he had been summoned to war with all the others. Even The Master had been recalled, and granted a new regeneration cycle, to join the effort, though he too had fled.

With a final gaze at his once-proud home, he turned his back to it and walked towards a damaged war-beaten police box. He opened the doors, stepped inside and stood, waiting. A decade might have passed, and he would not have noticed, for he was waiting and listening. Finally, a gong sounded from the city behind him, and a much more ominous noise rang from the Cloister Room of his trusted ship. It was time. He reached inside a torn pocket of his coat and extracted a battered, wooden device, it could have been a screwdriver. He raised it and pointed it at the console in the center of his ship and flicked it. A red light streamed from the tip and hit the console, which started to glow with a strange, golden light. The Moment was active, and the Doctor turned towards the planet outside, regret heavy in his heart.

"Everything ends. Everything has its time, and yours is now, Gallifrey. The Time Lords time... has run out." He said it more to himself than to anything, to try and ease his heart of the burden he was about to give it. Again, he flicked the device in his hand, and the TARDIS doors closed, and he prepared himself. He moved slowly over to the console monitor, and flicked the switch on, gazing at the planet and stalling his time.

With a final sigh, he flicked the device one final time, and the glow that had been radiating from the TARDIS console spread outwards, consuming the console room, the Doctor and everything within. It bled outwards, onto the planet surface, and death went with it. Whatever the golden light touched withered, and it snaked its way towards the Capitol. It shifted through the Dalek saucers, imprinting their genetic data into itself, and swept into the city. As the golden claw of The Moment reached the Citadel, everything was gone, in a fiery blast, and all of Time and Space was rent apart. All Dalek ships were vaporised in an instant, in every time period, and all Daleks were destroyed with them. As Gallifrey burned, the Time Lords perished, throughout the universe, their TARDISes disintegrating. One survived, hurtling through time and space, to a planet in the Sol system. The TARDIS crashed, in a junkyard on the outskirts of London, and lay there burning. But The Moment had retracted back inside the ship now, and retreated within the TARDIS console. As the one light vanished, another started, this time from the Doctor's badly damaged limbs. With a blinding glow, the Doctor's face shifted, its cells dying, regenerating and realigning in seconds, and mere moments after it had started, the glow stopped, and a new man stood there.

Paying no regard to his burning ship, he started his personal checks. Legs, present. Head, one, always a good sign. Chin... he could live with that. Ears, oh... not good, very not good, but he'd have to manage.

Once he'd assured himself that he was, in fact, still alive, he sank to his knees, the enormity of what he had just done, what he had finished, striking him fully. The dullness that had been in his eyes mere minutes ago lessened, and was replaced by a dark, cold weight, and he stood slowly, before leaving the TARDIS to burn itself out. He knew the TARDIS would regenerate itself of its own accord, and he had no desire to be inside the ship when it happened.

He strode out of the TARDIS, and straight out of the junkyard before glancing back. The address on the junkyard gate read "76 Totters Lane". For some reason, the place seemed familiar to him, but he shook his head and went in search of a clothes shop. He highly doubted his burnt clothes would keep him inconspicuous, and that was definitely the first thing he wanted to be.


End file.
